In a 6 to 0 vote with one abstention Wednesday afternoon, the freeholders adopted a resolution accepting a $200,000 Challenge Grant offered by the Salem County Health and Wellness Foundation for 2012, which would provide key seed money to establish the service.

The $200,000 grant must be matched by $200,000 raised from other sources — not the taxpayers of the county.

The action is only a step toward implementing the service.“We need to make a very important point,” said Freeholder Ben Laury, who has been working with Deputy Freeholder David Lindenmuth on the plan. “This is not pulling the trigger on this.”

The final decision by the freeholders on implementing the countywide ambulance service will come after there is significant written commitments from the municipalities and ambulance squads and the finances are in place and deemed sustainable.

The estimated overall start-up cost of this program will be approximately $675,000, officials say. Of this cost, $400,000 would be made up from the $200,000 grant and the $200,000 matching funding required by the grant agreement. Officials said one source for the matching funds could be local corporations.

The balance of the $475,000 would come through charges for the ambulance service.

Freeholder Dale Cross agreed improving the response time for emergency rescue services was important. But added that the cost “of the program can’t be put on the backs of taxpayers.”

Freeholders needed to act by Dec. 31 to secure the grant.

The County Emergency Medical Services Plan was drafted over a 16 month period in which a feasibility study was completed, each municipal government was interviewed, and the plan was discussed with all of the current squads operating throughout the county, according to officials.

The plan was developed with two main objectives in mind — better care for the people of this county and preservation of the volunteer ambulance system already in place.

Under the plan, the county — with the full cooperation of the volunteer ambulance squads and the municipalities — will hire trained personnel, purchase two used ambulances, and begin responding at the six minute mark after the initial dispatch call is placed.

According to information compiled by the county, in 2011 approximately 6,000 medical transports to hospitals across the county were made and 35 percent of them did not take place in what is deemed a timely manner.

There are 13 rescue squads in Salem County. Two — Pennsville and Carneys Point — are paid. Elmer is partially paid. The remaining 10 are all volunteer and unpaid.

“There is tremendous stress put on the volunteer squads to handle all of the calls in their municipalities,” Laury said. “Some are answering five hundred to one thousand calls per year with four or five volunteers. The State of New Jersey is making it harder on the volunteers as well, requiring more and more training hours and additional licensing requirements.”

“Our goal will be to decrease the response time from on an average of over twenty minutes to well fewer than 10,” said Scott Haines, the EMS administrator for the county, whose task it is to implement this plan.

“Those minutes may not seem long, but when you or a loved one is in cardiac arrest, or diabetic emergency those minutes are precious, and could mean life or death to the patient,” Laury said.

Haines said the county service will run seven days a week, 24 hours a day to assist volunteers when needed. Any volunteer squad that arrives on the scene will take precedence, with the county squad becoming the back up.

The Salem Health and Wellness Foundation was established with the funds received from the sale of non-profit The Memorial Hospital of Salem County to the for-profit Community Health Systems based in Tennessee.

The foundation makes grants to promote the health and well-being of Salem County residents.